Watching the Sea
by meruhen
Summary: Ariel watches and waits


**Title:** Watching the Sea  
**Fandom:** Grimm's Fairytales/The Little Mermaid (Disney inspired)  
**Character(s) or Pairing:** Ariel, Eric, their (OC) children  
**Rating:** PG  
**Warnings:** Speculation, Disney!verse  
**Word Count:** 800 words  
**Summary:** Ariel watches the sea and waits.  
**A/N:** Written for a friend, in response to the following challenge: R- Grimm's Fairytales/Little Mermaid, 'regret'. 

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Ariel watches the sea, at dusk, every day. She does not miss a day, unless she is ill or heavy with child and unable to make her way over the beach to the edge of the shore. And even then, when she is bound to bed, she struggles from the heavy blankets and too soft mattress and makes her way to the window, to watch the sun set golden over the blue-green sea. She is watching, waiting, but for what, no one knows. 

Her king says nothing about her activities: he remembers all too well that she is of the sea and she has given up her world, even if the memory fades from the mind of his people. And as the years go on, he becomes to busy to question, or even remember. He is human, he is fallible, and he can not be expected to remember.

-

Ariel has one child, then a second, and a third. All boys, all easily recognized as their children: his hair and his eyes run dominant in all but the last, which has her hair, but there is the quirk of her smile, the curve of her chin, the tilt of her nose.

She looks each time, studying them for a sign of her past, and breathes a sigh – of relief? Of regret? She is not even sure – each time there is no sign.

The babies are taken to the edge of the shore, each day, once she is well enough to walk again, and she watches again. They are each happy, being out there, and it continues until they are older, old enough to crawl, to walk, to speak in sentences. She does not teach them to swim, for she does not even know, and leaves that to the tutors and in-land lakes and rivers. They start spending more time playing games, learning and laughing, with their tutors and their friends, and the visits to the edge of the beach dwindle down, for her boys.

Each of her babies stops visiting the shore with her by their fifth summer. Ariel says nothing, does not try to convince them to come back: she knows the sea has no hold on them. 

The queen is not sure if this makes her happy or makes her sad. She does not examine it, for she fears the answer, one way or another.

-

The princess is born on the beach. Ariel is heavy with pregnancy, with doctor's orders to stay in bed, but she does not listen: something, the thing she has been waiting for, she thinks, calls to her. No one sees her leave, just before sunset, and she makes her way across the beach to her usual spot, in time to watch the sun set over the ocean, turning the surface into a shimmering mirror. The pain rips through her just as the sun sinks beneath the horizon.

No one is there to hear her cries, except the birds and the fish and the waves, but that is enough, and what she needs: the waves pound the beach but surround her with tenderness, silkier than the hands that were supposed to help.

It does not take long, the birth of her princess, despite Ariel's age and her weakened state. The sea gives her strength, washes away the blood with her pain. Her daughter makes her way up Ariel's body, instinct guiding her.

Soon after that, they are found. The shouts fill her head and bring pain, but Ariel can say nothing to stop them, and she is separated from her child and they are carried back home.

Except it isn't home, not to the newborn princess: she knows her place, even hours old, and it is not in the castle.

-

Ariel checks her daughter, as she once checked her sons, and her heart skips beats. There, between her toes, shimmers faint skin, transparent and not even noticeable except to a discerning eye. But she knows what it means.

She takes the princess to the beach the day after she was born, and they stand in the same spot, even if there is no sign of the events of the day before. The waves race to meet her and the princess is content. If she were older, Ariel thinks, she would be laughing, her tiny daughter who will have her mother's eyes and her father's hair. 

Ariel wonders if she will be able to hear her daughter's laugh before the sea claims her, or if she will grow up in their kingdom by the sea, only to suffer the same fate as her mother. She hopes it is not so: to see her daughter suffer as she has done will tear Ariel apart as nothing else has, not even leaving behind her world for love.


End file.
